Climate update

By Susanne Etti, October 2024

At Intrepid, we believe climate change is everyone’s business, so we’ve made it our business to take real steps to address it. This update provides a view of how we’ve advanced our program of climate and environmental action so far in 2024.  

In 2023, our focus was on developing a decarbonisation strategy across our business and operations to align with our 2035 science-based emissions reduction targets. This year, our priority has been working with our 28 country managers to create tailored roadmaps. 

But as a global tour operator, decarbonising while also growing our business poses a constant challenge. The rollout of our decarbonisation roadmap locally is also tied to destination adoption of renewable energy and associated green infrastructure, which in many countries where we operate is slow.  

We know that striking the right balance between growing and decarbonising our business is critical if we’re going to secure a 1.5°C world as laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement and achieve our long-term business targets as a responsible operator.  

Staying accountable is a big part of that journey, and I’d like to share a few highlights and learnings from the year to date.  

Carbon reporting 

We release an Integrated Report every year to provide a transparent and holistic look at our global business across financial and impact performance as well as outlining where we’re going in the years ahead.  

All data in the report, including financial and climate performance, is independently assured by auditors, PwC. This is voluntary and something we choose to do to add another layer of rigour to our reporting. In 2023, we introduced climate assurance as a new measure in response to the rapidly changing climate regulation environment globally and to deepen our commitment to accelerate carbon reduction across our business.   

An agent’s guide to understanding sustainable travel  

In July, we released our latest open-source sustainability guide, designed for our travel advisors to help them understand and communicate about more sustainable travel options with their clients.  

We created this guide after hearing from our industry partners that there’s a lack of resources that describe what low-impact travel is. According to a Harris Poll survey on behalf of Intrepid, less than 2 in 5 adults say it’s easy to find information about the carbon impact of their holiday.  

The 12-page guide is a practical resource containing facts, product case studies and easy-to-understand definitions. It is all part of our aim to support more travel industry professionals to learn more about low-impact travel.  

Download the handbook on our website.

Where to next? 

We’re committed to an ongoing evolution of our impact program as we learn and grow on the journey to being a better business.  

Rounding out the year, we are focused on reviewing our animal welfare policy, climate change risk mapping and full-year carbon reporting and assurance.  

Data on our climate performance will be published in full in our next Integrated Annual Report in March 2025. Until then, we’d love to hear what you think about our progress. Drop us a line at responsible.business@intrepidtravel.com.